Bernar Venet - Art Plural Gallery by Art Plural Gallery

Bernar Venet

Summary

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Early Wall Reliefs Recent Wall Reliefs: GRIBS Paintings: Saturations and Shaped Canvases Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

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Portrait of Bernar Venet, 2011 5

The Paradox of Coherence

Artistic production can only result from curious, open thought. It functions as a system whose richness consists of accepting, at one and the same time, the principles of harmony and conflict. It is the competition between those two elements or givens that creates a whole; and thus the principle of anti-organization becomes a factor in the development, the indispensable dynamism of the creative process. Bernar Venet, 1976 1 Bernar Venet has earned world fame as a sculptor of monumental art, but he began as a painter. Today he makes both paintings and sculptures which have their deep roots in an analytic program he began as a very young artist determined to escape the existing models and to formulate a radical art based on geometric theorems and the graphic imagery of mathematical formulas. As an inquisitive teenager he frequented the record store of the legendary “Ben”, the Fluxus artist Ben Vautier who drove around in a bus covered with anti art graffiti slogans and was a reference point for the international avant-garde. Through Ben, the precocious Venet met the Fluxus artists George Maciunas, Robert Filliou and George Brecht whose work he appreciated but found too close to Dada. Ben also introduced him to the group of avant-garde artists like Arman, César, Yves Klein and the German “Zero” group who were challenging the high modernist abstraction practiced in Paris. Although the assemblage artists Pierre Restany promoted as the Nouveaux réalistes became his friends, Venet’s natural inclination was to align himself with the more austere and intellectual monochrome artists, rather than with the assemblage aesthetic of the Nouveaux réalistes. Ben remembered Venet as a young soldier already experimenting with radical art. (Venet was drafted in 1961, sent to Tarascon and later, as the war was winding down, to Algeria). During a furlough from the army he visited Ben, announcing he was the fastest painter in the world. “I take five sheets of paper, lay them down side by side on the floor, take a bottle of ink and spatter all five in a tenth of a second with a single sweep of my arm. That makes two one hundredths of a second for each one. Nobody’s faster than I am!” 2. The spontaneous execution of these paintings could be considered a performance and indeed Venet became increasingly interested in actions documented by photography. In 1961 he started working with trash, poor materials that anticipated arte povera, rescued from garbage cans. The “trash” paintings, which recorded not an image but a process, were made by spilling paint on the cardboard panels allowing gravity to determine the direction and form of the image.

Bernar Venet remarks, “Published for the ﬁrst time in the catalogue of my exhibition at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art during the fall of 1976, this text is a virtual manifesto, announcing my return to artistic activity and the necessity of being in a permanent and rigorous state of questioning.” Lawrence Alloway and Thierry Kuntzel. Bernar Venet, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California, USA, 1976. Ben tells this anecdote in the 1977 catalogue on the Ecole de Nice by Ben Vautier, Maurice Eschapasse, Nathalie Brunet, Musée national d’art moderne, CNAC Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1977.

Bernar Venet in his studio on rue Parolière, Nice, 1965

Scraps [Déchets] 1961 Industrial paint on cardboard Exhibition: Kunsthalle Mücsarnok, Budapest, Hungary, 2012

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

A committed experimenter, Venet had already rejected the idea that art transformed matter or that it depended on the relationship of shapes to one another. Once again emphasizing process over image, in 1963, in the first work he made as a professional artist, Venet claimed as a sculpture a heap of charcoal whose form changed every time it was dumped on the floor and exhibited. Both the specificity as well as the informal unpremeditated organization of the material predict the deconstructed elements of arte povera as well as post-minimalist anti-form. The 1963 Heap of Coal was intentionally inexpressive. In the tar paintings of the early Sixties, Venet dispensed with color and texture. He used tar as a medium because it was free and available but also to avoid oil paint, which is expressive of the hand of the artist. He termed the built up layers of tar painted on cardboard “industrial paintings” because of their standardized surfaces, which nevertheless do not look mechanical, geometric or programmatic. Thus even at the outset of his career, paradox and a sense of contradiction characterizes Venet’s art. This effacement of his own hand is typical of all of Venet’s works from the beginning until the present. It was a choice made not because he lacked technical facility but rather to remove himself from his work. The Constructivists were the first to wish to create impersonal art that effaced the personality and emotions of the artists in favor of universality and generalization. Yet we know a lot about the lives of these Russian and Eastern European artists who dedicated themselves to geometry and strict theories that inspired Mondrian and later non-objective artists. But none managed to so completely efface their own personalities as totally as Bernar Venet, who thoroughly erased his feelings and private life from his work to the extent that critics and historians have been turned into archeologists in order to reconstruct his evolution as an artist. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Creation is first and foremost a historic fact. This does not mean it should be understood as a simple mechanical relationship between cause and effect, for artistic creation is a function of social milieu, personal biography, the subjective life of the artist, technical and economic resources, and many other things. Bernar Venet, 1975 3 Bernar Venet was born during World War II in Saint-Auban, a provincial manufacturing town in the northern alpine region of Provence. He was a very precocious child who copied Rembrandt drawings with such obvious artistic talent that he was invited to exhibit his first oil paintings in the Salon de Peinture de Péchiney in Paris when he was eleven years old. The youngest of four boys, Bernar was drawn not to science like his chemist father, who died when he was fourteen, or engineering like his brother but to art, an interest his mother encouraged. Venet was a quiet intellectual bespectacled boy, by French standards very skinny and very tall. He dreamed of being a cowboy in America named “Jimmy”, possibly because the image of James Stewart as the gentle lone 3

Originally released as “A Summary of Responses to Basic Questions” from 1975, it was published in Art: A Matter of Context. Bernar Venet: Writings 1975-2003. Hard Press Editions, Lenox, Massachussetts, USA, 2004.

Représentation graphique de la fonction y = -x²/4 1966 Acrylic on canvas 146 x 121 cm Collection: Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Equations 1966-7 Acrylic on canvas Exhibition: Kunsthalle Mücsarnok, Budapest, Hungary, 2012

cowboy suggested freedom and adventure. Eventually he would find both in his own nonconformity. But first he would need to reconcile the two opposing elements of his personality: intellectual introspection and physical action often expressed in a love of speed and spontaneity fighting against the periods of concentration and analysis during which his premises are worked out. Recent investigations have found that the most highly creative and original artists suffer from various childhood illnesses and traumas that take them away from normal physical activities and provoke episodes of depression during which mental activity supplants the normal physical outlets of children and adolescents 4. Bernar Venet was no exception. As a child he suffered from debilitating asthma attacks that kept him out of school and indoors with time to think, read and reflect. Like Jasper Johns he is an auto-didact with no university education who attended a small art school only briefly. What he learned he taught himself in his quest for self-education motivated by a voracious intellectual curiosity. Before he could move forward, however, Venet had to resolve an existential crisis that caused him to think of the art of the past as a prison from which he had to be freed. In 1959 he produced a series of small paintings that he exhibited in Saint-Auban before leaving for the army. In Life is a Furlough from Death, 1959 a tiny figure inspired by the graphic symbols of Paul Klee enclosed in a square within a receding square looks as lost as a character in a Beckett play. The work was painted in Nice while Venet was working as stage designer at the opera. At the time he was fascinated by the mystery of symbols painted works titled Tomb, Life, Identity and Christ on the Cross… Given his future development one can imagine that this period of late adolescence coincided with an existential crisis of faith. He had symbolically painted himself into a corner, Sartre’s Huit clos from which he had to find an exit in order to survive. THE SEARCH FOR ZERO DEGREE ART I reject all personal emotion translated onto canvas; we live in an age where industry has taken over… I think everything can be reduced to graphs, which have no place for spirit and emotion. Development can only come about through logic: this is why I have taken my art in the direction of logic, which relies a great deal on discipline. Bernar Venet, 1967 5 In his influential essay The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes continued his description of what he termed the “degree zero of literature”. This degree zero would mean a new beginning of a neutral art of surface free of emotional content and distanced from its creator. This was the course Venet decided to pursue in redefining painting as an intellectual activity. Today, Venet is world famous for his immense gravity defying steel structures that challenge the scale of architecture. Less known but essential to the full trajectory of his thinking are his paintings whose images are taken from mathematical formulas. 4 5

Schildkraut, et.al. Miró and Spirituality. Wylie, New York, USA, 1992. Besson, Christian, “Transparency and Opacity: The Work of Bernar Venet from 1961 to 1976”, Art: A Matter of Context. Bernar Venet: Writings 1975-2003. Hard Press Editions, Lenox, Massachusetts, USA, 2004.

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Foreground: Pile of Coal, 1963, sculpture with no speciﬁc dimensions Background: Goudrons [Tars], 1963, tar on canvas, 150 x 130 cm, each Exhibition: Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hungary, 2012 10

Bernar Venet in his studio on West Broadway, New York, 1978

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Venet refused any metaphorical reading of the work, a philosophical position aligned with that articulated by Susan Sontag in her 1963 essay, Against Interpretation. The year Sontag wrote her signature statement, Venet moved to his first studio on Rue Pairolière, a working class neighborhood in the old quarter of Nice. By that time the group of artists from the South of France who became known as the “Ecole de Nice” including Yves Klein and Arman, had mainly moved to Paris, but Venet became their young companion when they returned to party in sunny Mediterranean port. A generation younger than the Nouveaux réalistes, Venet recognized that their break with the modernist abstraction of the School of Paris was a radical rupture with the past, although alien to his own austere and analytic vision. In 1964, Venet was invited to show alongside the New Realists and Pop artists in the Salon Comparaisons at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. The works he showed were his folded monochrome reliefs made from crushed cardboard boxes smashed into rectangles. He continued making cardboard reliefs covering their surfaces with fresh coats of monochrome industrial paint each time they were exhibited so that they always look fresh and new. The accumulation of layers of paint unified their now shiny surfaces disguising their humble origins. As much as Venet denies the influence of Marcel Duchamp, who he admired and finally met in 1967, his methods of investigation and discovery and his search for originality parallel Duchamp’s rejection of formalism and convention although he never made found objects. Rather he concentrated on found texts. Duchamp held that to think differently and to make thoroughly original work, the artist needed to go to a country where he did not speak the language, as Duchamp did during his trip to the Jura Mountains with Apollinaire. Venet, easily as French and as Cartesian as Duchamp, found himself at first mute in New York. He also followed Duchamp’s advice not to take art but rather mathematics and philosophy as a point of departure. And like Duchamp, he set out to strain the laws of physics. First of course, he had to learn them. At this point the ambitious young artist could have settled in Paris, but instead he decided to skip the French capital and head straight for New York... NEW YORK, NEW YORK My purpose was not to dematerialize art, but to stress, through the use of other media that the originality of my work was in its content, the knowledge it conveyed and its symbolic system - and not in its material characteristics (or lack thereof). Bernar Venet, “Ten Years of Conceptual Art”, artpress, 1968 6 Bernar Venet arrived in New York City in April 1966 with a smattering of English and only enough money to call Arman who was living on the second floor of the tenement where Frank Stella had his studio. Arman was somewhat shocked to find his young friend had taken him at his word that he would put him up if he ever wanted to come 6

Bernar Venet, “L’Art conceptuel a dix ans,” artpress, n˚ 16, Paris, France, March 1978.

Indeterminate Surface 1996 Torch-cut waxed steel 253 x 227 x 3.5 cm Collection: Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany

to New York since there was no place to sleep other than his own bed. However, Virginia Dwan was storing her Kienholz assemblage of a living room in the cramped studio so for two months Venet camped out on the red velvet Victorian couch that was part of the Kienholz tableau. In 1966, the tenement building at 84 Walker Street was a beehive of activity. Arman, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely who would become a good friend of Venet’s, were living and working on the second floor while Frank Stella and Carl Andre used the third floor as studios. Although he admired the assemblages of Arman and Cesar, Venet was drawn to their pared down conceptual styles as well as to the intellectual works of Minimalist sculptors such as Dan Flavin, and particularly Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt who became good friends and with whom Venet traded works. On this first trip to New York in April 1966, the twenty four year old artist stayed only two months. That summer he turned to Nice and began to study the objectivity of blueprints and the diagrams as possible models for an art based on semiotics rather than aesthetics. Realizing his art could only develop in New York, which according to Jean Baudrillard had “stolen the idea of modern art”, in December Venet moved permanently to Manhattan. Before he left Nice, he designed a ballet that was eventually performed in 1988 by the Paris Opera. The original sketches were related to the diagrams he was already doing as drawings. The ballet involved a complex arrangement or ropes that held the dancers in space across the whole of the proscenium. A rootless young vagabond, he often stayed in Arman’s apartment in the Chelsea Hotel, a meeting place for international artists. Shortly after his arrival in New York, he exhibited as sculpture a length of industrial cardboard tubing sliced diagonally, which permitted a simultaneous vision of both its exterior and interior. They depended on the laws of gravity because the slanted cuts determined their positions. The tube sculptures were made with cardboard rolls and painted industrial yellow. Others were made out of industrial gray polyvinyl chloride pipes. These sculptures were empty; their surfaces were visible both from the inside and the outside. Venet had already begun making diagrams and he sometimes accompanied this work with a large-scale diagram of its parts and their construction. This diagram is the prototype of the black and white paintings and drawings that resembled graphs rather than pictures. He used mathematical formulas rather than text to create a tension between image and object that was first explored by Fluxus to then become the formula for conceptual art puzzles that Venet ultimately found facile and repetitious. Venet’s decision to work in New York engaged him immediately in the current dialogue on conceptual and performance art described by Thomas McEvilley. Venet wished to avoid the concept of the “aesthetic”, although as critics have pointed out, in the end even the most radical art can be seen as aesthetic after time passes. His decision to base his art on the impersonal laws of physics and mathematics was an attempt to free art from the familiar designed elements of formal compositions.

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The definition of the work of art as no more than its technical specifications was a direct attack on the idea of art as spiritual transcendence. Venet’s contemporaries in New York were the conceptual artists, but his formation was quite different from theirs. Whereas they based their explorations on the disjunction between word and image on the analytic investigations of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the verifiability principle of A.J. Ayer - texts that were available in English - Venet was inspired by the theories of French semiologist Jacques Bertin, at a time when semiotics was barely known in the United States because the texts had not been translated yet. Venet had already been drawing and painting diagrams when Jacques Bertin published his Sémiologie graphique in 1967, but in Bertin’s theories of linguistics, which defined the three types of visual communication he found a solid basis for continuing his use of graphic linear formulas as imagery that could not be interpreted any other way, despite the fact that their context was displaced from textbooks to paintings and later sculpture. In France, Bertin ran a laboratory where researchers came with drawings for the technical publications. His colleagues noticed that almost nobody looked at them and even fewer people understood them. This was precisely Venet’s aim: to create a roadblock to interpretation. In Paris, structuralism was the analytic method of the day. However, among the first to use the term structuralism in relation to art was the American sculptor and critic Jack Burnham who wrote The Structure of Art in 1971. The title refers to the structure based on linguistic models within a work of art that reveals how content is signified. Burnham singled out Venet as one of the most important practitioners of the structural model in art and reproduced his photographic enlargement of a page of The Logic of Decision and Action that Venet exhibited in 1969. Venet’s selection of the text was not arbitrary: he was searching for a way to base art on logical and rational decisions that would be the basis for a system 7. For Burnham, Venet’s conceptual work had a double-headed implication. On the one hand, Burnham wrote, “He is presenting a text which to some extent reveals the constancy of the structure of art-making. At the same time through the dialectical, and thus historical, progression of knowledge as an integral aspect of the human condition, he is subverting the historical-mythic structure behind all avant-garde art.” This was of course exactly Venet’s intention. 1969 was a busy year for Venet, now an active participant in the New York art world. John Perreault often noted his activities as part of the downtown avant-garde in his columns in The Village Voice. On May 1, he announced the Free Art Street Works, a group exhibition in which Venet participated. Among the participating artists were Vito Acconci, Scott Burton, Arakawa, and James Lee Byars. In his June 5 column, Perreault reviewed the Para-Visual Language II exhibition at the Dwan Gallery and Lucy Lippard’s Art Workers Coalition Benefit at the Paula Cooper Gallery where Venet contributed works along with Lawrence Weiner, Sol LeWitt, Bill Bollinger, Robert Smithson, Mel Bochner, Michael Kirby, Joseph Kosuth, Adrian Piper, On Kawara, Robert Morris, and Bruce Nauman. On December 18, 1969 Perreault wrote: “I have been receiving The Wall Street Journal every morning courtesy of

Jack Burnham, The Structure of Art. George Braziller, New York, USA, 1971.

Paintings, 1976-1978, acrylic on canvas Exhibition: Institut ValenciĂ dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain, 2010 15

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9 lignes obliques 2010 Cor-ten steel H: 30 meters Installation: Place Sulzer, Promenade des Anglais, Nice, France 16

Bernar Venet. Stock market figures and weather reports have been Venet’s special thing for a while now, so I guess this is a work of art.” Venet photographically enlarged pages of stock market quotes as well as other pages taken from printed sources to mural scale size, which he showed in various exhibitions in the late Sixties. Venet’s development reflected both the French as well as the American approach to post minimal art. The French part of Venet’s aesthetic derives from his knowledge of semiotics and concrete art as it developed in Europe in the forms of musique concrète and concrete poetry. Indeed, Venet has created a concrete music composition recording the sound of the motors of the supersonic Concorde airplane as well as publishing a provocative volume of concrete poetry that consists of provocative lists and phrases. Because of his divergent dual background Venet’s work predicted rather than participating in the “dematerialization” of the art object that characterized post minimal and conceptual art in New York around 1970. Up to that time he had not in fact concentrated on making objects. In her seminal book on art in the late sixties, The Dematerialization of the Art Object, Lucy Lippard described how Venet’s conceptual works antedated the disappearance of art as specific object, redefining art as a concept rather than as a thing. Concerning Bernar Venet she wrote: “Bernar Venet decides to present during the next four years: Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, Space Sciences, Mathematics by Computation, Meteorology, Stock Market, Mathematics, Psychophysics and Psycho Chronometry, Sociology and Politics, Mathematical Logic, etc.” She quotes Venet’s explanation of how he proceeded: “For each discipline an authority advised me upon the subjects to be presented: these subjects were chosen according to their importance… The question was not to make a new object, a new readymade out of mathematics. I attributed a didactic goal to their presentation. Scientific diagrams were painted, at first by hand, on large canvases; later (1967) some were accompanied by taped lectures and the paintings became photographic blowups of texts or diagrams directly from books.” Venet’s activity as a conceptual artist did not go unnoticed. In 1971, Donald Karshan organized a retrospective of his early work at the New York Cultural Center. With that success in hand, Bernar Venet shocked his contemporaries and decided, at the age of twenty-nine, to stop making art.

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Three Indeterminate Lines 1994 Rolled steel 272 x 305 x 411.5 cm Private collection, USA Exhibition: Sothebyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at Isleworth, Florida, 2008 18

Wall paintings from the Equation series, site-speciﬁc dimensions Exhibition: Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany, 2002

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STOP IN THE NAME OF ART The conceptual impasse of the “little piece of typewritten paper” is a cliché that has had its day. It, too, became a new aesthetic, but looking back on it now, we see that its alleged contribution wasn’t that much to begin with. Bernar Venet, “Ten Years of Conceptual Art”, artpress, 1968 8 When he moved to New York in late 1966, Venet set himself a program of investigation that he definitely intended to complete. Four years later, he decided that the conceptual phase of his work was over and that he would stop making art. It was a decision parallel to Duchamp’s refusal to paint after he completed Tu m’ in 1918, which was an inventory of every conceivable type of illusion painting could produce. Instead of exhibiting, Duchamp worked in secret for five years producing The Large Glass, the result of his investigations into physics and optics. Venet would follow a similar path, disappearing from view. Returning to Paris, he taught art theory at the Sorbonne and concentrated on writing and thinking without producing art between 1971 and 1976. The process of finding his own vocabulary was both lengthy and arduous. The intentional caesura created by Venet’s decision to return to France, abandon art making and remove himself from the New York scene for many years effaced his first New York period of conceptual art and mathematical and semiotic investigations. In September 1976, his period of reflection and self-investigation over and bored by inactivity, Venet decided to start making art again and moved back to New York. He acquired studios first on West Broadway and then on Canal Street, where the minimal artists often found modular industrial materials in quantities. Finding himself with no furniture in his new studio, Venet designed simple geometric seating and tables as he had done previously in 1969. They were sent to a fabricator to be made in steel. This was his first experience in large-scale steel fabrication, again a chance experience determined by necessity that provided a point of departure, this time for sculpture in three dimensions. Indeed these unornamented geometric steel forms, which had their origin in practical necessity, could be considered his first large scale sculptures. Back in New York, Venet threw himself into the New York art scene, participating in group shows at Leo Castelli and Paula Cooper that included the leading American minimal and conceptual artists. Along the way he encountered and practiced not only minimal and conceptual art but also performance, photography, poetry, music, choreography and theater design. He was audaciously experimental. Among friends he would practice entertaining magic tricks such as balancing a garbage can on his chin, a preview of his apparently innate and intuitive sense of balance that permitted him to make huge sculptures that appear magically balanced. It was his last act before deciding to start making art again.

Bernar Venet, “L’Art conceptuel a dix ans,” artpress, n˚ 16, Paris, France, March 1978.

Venet’s search for an irreducible image with a single reading that resisted interpretation lead to an exploration of lines, arcs and graphic signs in drawings and paintings that lead him to produce these signs in three dimensions and use them as building blocks for his sculptures. He began with black and white drawings, paintings and reliefs of graphs or charts of lines, arcs and angles, the basis of the sculptural style he was about to develop. The pared down black and white 1976 canvases looked like illustrations enlarged from the pages of a geometry text rather than paintings. By 1978, the measured black lines inscribed on canvas had become equally precise wood reliefs. In the succeeding sculptures based on the line, the arc and the angle, the mind completes what the eye sees. This tension between the perceptual and the conceptual has been a modern theme since Cezanne drew his multiple line incomplete contours. Venet’s concern with essences lead him to investigate the conundrum of what a potentially infinite three-dimensional line could be. Venet considers the open tubes in his 1966 conceptual piece his first three-dimensional lines. He continued this investigation of transforming the one-dimensional graphic symbol into two- and three-dimensional equivalents. This is a theme he picked up again in 1979 when he began to develop steel sculptures composed of two arcs and a series of wood reliefs that lead to the three-dimensional sculptures (1983). The elements of the sculptures were laid out on the floor of his studio to be organized by Venet following the linear scribbles he had previously enlarged into large metal wall reliefs he called “Indeterminate Areas”. When he made the transition from wood to steel, a new element entered his repertory: the “Indeterminate Line”. Defined as a linear form that departs from regularity according to no preconceived plan, but rather takes shape through the artist’s interaction with his material. The first three-dimensional lines were factory made metal rods that theoretically could be indefinitely extended. Extrapolated into three dimensions the graphic line becomes free and playful, antic and unpredictable, thus gaining in force what it loses in rationality. The three-dimensional line becomes dramatic expression of the space penetrated while avoiding the constraints of composition. The Indeterminate Lines are not mathematically defined but are variable depending on the artist’s decisions which incorporate chance and acknowledge the mathematical principle of indeterminacy. The various configurations of Indeterminate Lines Venet begun in the 1980s were made by bending and twisting long square rods of steel with an overhead crane. The coiled spiraling line bears the memory of the struggle between the artist and his obdurate material. As Carter Ratcliff was quick to perceive, Venet’s tactics were based on oppositions and contradictions, paradoxes that generated his forms: “This principle of opposition-sculpture against world, art against non-art, is so reliable that it is easy to overlook the oppositions within his oeuvre” he wrote. “Venet advances by going to extremes, one after the next, systematically.” Ratcliff also noted that many who knew him as a fabricator of large works in metal in the Eighties and Nineties forgot or never knew about his work as a conceptual artist in New York in the late Sixties. The Seventies were a period of transition and personal growth for Venet within the context of developments in New York. Among the most important of these developments was the possibility of creating large-scale

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Saturation 2006 30 x 4.75 m Installation: Galerie Philippe SĂŠguin, Cour des Comptes, Paris, France 22

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

sculpture for public contexts. In 1967, the United States government began a program of art in public places. Barnett Newman was among the first artists selected to make a public sculpture. Having never done sculpture, Newman researched the possibilities for creating works on a large scale to be exhibited outdoors. The Broken Obelisk would be exhibited in front of the Seagram Building in New York City, in a manner that reflects Barnett Newman’s claim to “declare the space”. And indeed one can imagine that the vertical thrust as well as the use of cor-ten by Newman in his sculpture set an example for Venet. It was an example he could only fulfill, however, by integrating his life and art. A NEW LIFE AND NEW HORIZONS The artist should remain open and be opposed to sectarianism. Naturally, he or she should be aware of everything that has been conceived within art, but his or her main activity will be to leave the confines of art. The artist should take interest in the knowledge of others; have openness towards the outside world that will lead to an engagement in types of work assumed inconceivable before now. Bernar Venet. “Le contexte de l’art, l’art du contexte”, artpress, 1996 9 Bernar Venet has consistently held that life is unpredictable. He could not for example predict that meeting a beautiful Parisian journalist after an opening in Nice in 1985 would radically alter the course of his life, opening up possibilities for expression and expansion as well as bringing a joie de vivre he had never previously experienced. Now he would divide his time between New York and Le Muy, in the countryside near Nice, where he bought a large property containing an old mill that was gradually converted into a home filled with art he had traded with the artists he admired. Both a large painting studio as well as a sculpture studio was added to Le Muy. Public commissions followed that permitted him to elaborate on a large scale his initial premises. Typical of the Indeterminate Lines is their relationship to the Asian ideogram or calligraphy. The “scribble” of the twisting and winding pieces has its analogies in handwriting and as divergent as it is from Picasso’s and David Smith’s geometric “drawing in space”, they nevertheless offer similar openings and transparency that are characteristic of modernism not found in traditional sculpture. Take for example the extraordinary and impressive 36-foot high Two Indeterminate Lines he created for La Défense in Paris in 1986 that rhythmically intertwine as if in a tango. The Indeterminate Line sculptures preserve the trace or evidence of the resistance of the steel to his will to bend it into eccentric and unpredictable knots and curves adds drama to our perception of the work as based on a given material or proposition that is altered by the artist’s human physical intervention. The new studio in Le Muy permitted Venet to expand his horizons and to work on an architectural scale that few sculptors, despite the dreams of Constructivists like Tatlin, have ever been able to realize.

Siegelaub, Seth, “The Context of Art, Art in its Context”, originally published as “69/96 - Avant garde et ﬁn de siècle - le contexte de l’art, l’art du contexte”, artpress, n˚ 17, Paris, France, 1996.

88.5Ë&#x161; Arc x 8 2012 Cor-ten steel H: 27 meters Collection: Gibbs Farm, New Zealand 25

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37.5Ë&#x161; Arc 2010 Cor-ten steel H: 38 meters Collection: Dongkuk Steel Co. Ltd, Seoul, South Korea 26

He added to the vocabulary of the Indeterminate Lines the “Arcs”, segments of circles that first appear in his earliest drawings and paintings. In 1987 he initiated the series of monumental Arcs with the huge 60 x 120 foot Arc of 124.5˚ commissioned by the French government for the 750th anniversary of Berlin, which now occupies the Urianaplatz. Like the subsequent multiple arc sculptures, the work is titled in engraved block letters on the surface with the circumference, usually the number of degrees of the arc, which emphasizes their literal reference uniquely to themselves. That the inscribed title is a description of the segment of the circle that the arc represents indicates Venet’s insistence on specificity as a definition of the uniqueness of each work of art. Each of Venet’s Arcs is a segment of the circumference of a circle, a concept he explored earlier in drawings and paintings. Our knowledge that although the full circle is not present is related to the concept of the indeterminate line whose beginning and end are equally implied without being given. These mental projections from the physical work add to the complexity of our reaction which necessarily invokes an unknown, not present but implied projection. In the case of the precariously balanced Arcs we can project the circle from which they are derived, although their drama lies precisely in their projection of the non finito. Working within the parameters of the given, Venet pushes those boundaries to see how far they can be extended. The latest large-scale works are increasingly powerful and dense expressions of Venet’s chosen medium and basic forms, which he may now combine and recombine in a variety of permutations. Inevitably the relation to the landscape affects the structure of the sculpture. Hard steel contrasts with the soft green forms of nature just as the diagonals and loops of the Indeterminate Lines contradict the cubic volumes of adjacent buildings. The huge Arcs look as if they could be rocked thus projecting imminent movement. The towering unfinished vertical Arcs that the mind finishes represent a penetration of space that defies gravity. The progression from diagrams and formulas to the obdurate physicality of intractable heavy metal thrust the artist into unknown territories. The actions of chance, the gravity of materials, and the precariousness of equilibrium still concern him although now he is able to explore their interaction on a colossal scale. Chance determined heaps of lines are colossal versions of the original Heap of Coal. The looped skeins of the labyrinthine Indeterminate Lines that cannot be disentangled correspond to our own existential situation as we attempt to understand where the universe begins and ends. Thus in the end, Venet forgoes his initial rejection of metaphor, placing his work not in the realm of cold calculation but in that of the precarious and unpredictable human condition. Despite the cold calculations of his earlier work, Venet extrapolated his original mathematically based impersonal inexpressiveness into forms that have become—perhaps unintentionally—increasingly expressive. As his concepts developed and his technical skill as well as his means to make larger works improved, Venet’s Lines and Arcs became denser and increasingly monumental and imposing. However despite their explicit weightiness they are never passive or inert. The huge vertical arcs that lead the eye from earth to sky and back are also suggestive of human relationships which are totally at odds with Venet’s initial exclusively intellectual propositions. The reductivism of inexpressiveness is replaced by the complexity of a variable and suggestive expressiveness that, however, is not to be confused with the sentimentality and weltschmerz of expressionism. 27

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Venet’s sculptures have a directness and immediacy as well as a sense of scale when contrasted with their surrounding architecture that seems uncannily appropriate. Indeed, part of their allure is a sense that their precarious equilibrium is some kind of magic trick, the kind of surprise characteristic of his mercurial personality that we are provoked to understand and yet cannot quite grasp. The reason we cannot, however, is that behind their apparently simple presentations are decades of thought and experiment that permit the artist to create such astonishing forms. As his work progressed, Venet became increasingly aware of human inability to impose a predetermined order. This perception lead him to permit chance to play a role in his art. Thus he began a dialogue between the predetermined and the indeterminate. He started to incorporate principles of disorganization or randomness in recent works that in their compositional formlessness—lines, angles or arcs heaped at random—pick up the thread of indeterminacy announced the original Heap of Coal. Tracing the course of his career from the “action” of spilling the pile of coal on to the floor and photographing it as a work of art we see a strategy of oppositions and self-contradictions that challenge the conventional idea of stylistic evolution. However, as we review Venet’s career, we observe that his use of paradox is consistent in his work in both painting and sculpture. Thus paradox becomes a principle of continuity rather than of rupture. The problem then becomes how to reconcile the contradictions of paradox with the logic of coherence. Venet resolves this problem by depending on the logic of the conclusions he ultimately draws from his original theses. If these first principles appear self-contradictory or at odds with each other than the wresting of coherence from paradox becomes a constant struggle, as other elements such as accident and chance are incorporated into the system of thought. It is a problem that has perplexed logicians and philosophers since Socrates. In an effort to reconcile the contradictions of paradox into a coherent system Venet came across Kurt Gödel’s Theory of Incompleteness, which proved that any formal system that is rich enough to express arithmetic will have a proposition which is true yet cannot be proved, which is a paradox. Gödel showed that formal systems strong enough for arithmetic are either inconsistent or incomplete and that an inconsistent system is worthless since inconsistent systems allow contradictions. In the end Gödel concluded that even mathematics was clouded by subjectivity, leaving no grounds for distinguishing between the rational and the irrational. Gödel reasoned that although it is obvious that a line can be extended infinitely in both directions, no one has been able to prove it, which may be why Venet refers to his lines as “indeterminate” since they can begin or end wherever the eye decides is their projection. Gödel proved that there are always more things that are true than you can prove because any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions. Thus if incompleteness is true in math, it’s equally true in science or language and philosophy and art. Logic could not prove the existence or non-existence of God.

Venet had never been convinced by the strict axioms of logical positivism, which maintained that anything you could not measure or prove was nonsense. He was far more comfortable with Gödel’s more elastic system in which faith and reason are not mutually exclusive. Within this system, even if science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws, you cannot prove it because of the subjectivity of the human observer. Therefore what you cannot prove you must take on faith based on experience. And it was precisely experiences, especially new experiences, that Venet always sought. FROM AXIOMATIC PROGRAMS TO THE FREEDOM OF DOUBT I work in doubt, far from the comfort of the assurance of habit. I paint shaped canvases which I can’t justify either. It is one kind of possible order… I follow my intuition and it seems to me that the result deserves to exist because of its difference and because I astonish myself. I don’t have one personality; I have several. I want to live change and to choose among all the possibilities that it seems to me deserve to exist. Bernar Venet, in conversation, 2010 A visit to Venet’s studios in Le Muy is an opportunity to watch Venet in action like a whirling dervish, painting in the morning, working in the sculpture studio usually in the afternoon, arranging and rearranging the various linear elements until he is satisfied with the configuration. Currently Venet fabricates the elements of the Arcs, Angles and Indeterminate Lines in a foundry in Hungary. Once the steel elements are shaped they are brought to his factory near Le Muy in the Var region of southern France where he has one of his studios. (The other is in New York.) The Arcs are created by rolling cold steel into predetermined segments, although again he may and often will change the pieces once he has the elements in his studio. The three-dimensional Indeterminate Lines on the other hand begin as solid rods that he bends with clamps and tongs overhead cranes to twist them into unpremeditated configurations that inject them with spontaneity and a sense of motion once they are installed. Venet has described his relationship with his material as an interaction he sets into motion but cannot completely control. At every point the artist himself intervenes in the creation of the large-scale works, which is particularly evident in the series of Indeterminate Lines that are the opposite of mechanistic, bearing their traces of the struggle of the sculptor with his medium. Venet does not make preparatory drawings for his sculptures although he continues to make large drawings as well as paintings as a separate enterprise. There are maquettes for the later works and from smaller versions, but these are made after the fact or independently rather that to serve as models to be blown up. He sometimes creates different models choosing the one that best corresponds to the site, changing between the maquettes and the final work.

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

219.5Ë&#x161; Arc x 22 2006 Cor-ten steel H: 360 cm, diam.: 430 cm; site-speciďŹ c dimensions Collection: Capella Hotel, Singapore 30

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

In the final decisions that decide the form of the sculptures, Venet literally wrestles with his materials. He considers this intimate physical relationship with tons of steel a game pitting the constraints of the metal against his will to form it. This physical struggle is at the heart of the Indeterminate Line sculptures. We feel the physicality of the wrestling match between the artist and his material as a drama of creation. The solid massive steel resists the artist’s wish to twist it. The resulting configuration corresponds now to no mathematical formula: it is as unpredictable and uncontrollable as life itself. Thus the artist who began determined to reduce his work to a single meaning may find that experience denies that possibility. The paradox of coherence is the result of an infinite form of ever evolving complexity. In 2000, wishing to attempt something new, Venet - probably inspired by the Sol LeWitt wall drawing that occupies a wall of his house - created a series of murals paintings. The mathematical equations that cover their monochrome surfaces are once borrowed from scientific works drawn in black on brightly colored grounds. These works were the subject of an article by Donald Kuspit in the New York Art Review that caught the attention of Karl Heinrich Hofmann, a professor of mathematics at the Technische Universität in Darmstadt, Germany. Hofmann perceived a relationship between Venet’s algebraic formulas to Commutative Diagrams 10. “To a mathematician it appears that he is partly motivated by an artist’s desire to make the mathematicians’ infatuation with ‘elegance’—certainly an aesthetic category—manifest for the layman” he observed. However, he was somewhat befuddled by the critic’s interpretation. According to Kuspit, “We are no longer afraid to be ignorant, for the color allows us to embrace our ignorance as the way to the emotional truth.” Kuspit saw mathematics as the alienness, an “entry into the emotional depths. What emotional truth? I suggest it is a sexual truth and depth… which at its deepest establishes an erotic relationship with the spectator. And which in itself re-enacts the sexual union of opposites. I suggest that Venet’s wall paintings do so, without showing its consummation. They are profoundly sexual in import, on a grand scale that masks their poignancy 11.” Befuddled, the mathematician asks himself, “Could it be possible that I have missed out on something?” Not sharing the critics “orgiastic sentiments” he enjoyed the manner in which mathematical equations were presented in an aesthetic context. Hofmann remarks the deliberate repositioning and changes of scale of formulas from books that alters their function converting them into space defining marks aesthetically arranged. Now the signs used by mathematicians to communicate information are translated into jumbled typographical markings to fill space. “Mathematicians”, Hofmann noted, “are likely to react and respond immediately; outsiders are probably surprised if not stunned by the artist’s proposition that tokens of a highly specialized technical language are to be used as building blocks of a new artistic expression. The element of surprise is calculated. In Venet’s work, mathematical typography is recognized as its own graphical and architectural structure, utilized and elevated artistically in a twofold fashion: first, by the brilliant monochromatic backgrounds, and second, by the monumental format 12.” 10

Hofmann, Karl Heinrich, Notes of the American Mathematical Society, June/July 2002. Kuspit, Donald, “Bernar Venet’s Wall Paintings”, New York Arts Magazine, n˚ 9, New York, September 2003. 12 Hofmann, Karl Heinrich, Notes of the American Mathematical Society, June/July 2002. 11

The mural paintings were followed by the Saturation series, large-scale canvases that added another degree of complexity by altering the size and color of the equations on their monochrome fields. Finding pleasure in painting with materials that did require a physical struggle, Venet continues to paint. The most recent series is inspired by the gilded ceiling of the Cour des Comptes in Paris, a commission that Venet won in a competition. In making the “gold” paintings, Venet first decides on the dimensions and shapes of the works, as well as the texts and equations and their size and placement and paints the gold grounds himself, but admits he does not have the patience to apply them to the surface of the paintings, a task he leaves to assistants. He makes the paintings out of a desire for change in order to get away from routine when he does not have any strong new ideas for sculptures. “I take all liberties. I work from intuition which is complete opposed and contradictory to my mathematical works of the Sixties in which theory and logic were more important than the pleasure of painting.” Originally, as we have observed, Venet focused on the relationship between the theoretical, the material and the practical. He based his forms on those of Platonic geometry—the line, the angle and the curve – that he ultimately extended to a point where they suggested the infinite. Their concreteness and actuality however maintained specificity so that they invoked neither Kandinsky’s spiritual dimensions nor Mondrian’s equally transcendental associations with the purity of the geometric. Despite the cold calculations of his earlier work, Venet extrapolated his original mathematically based impersonal inexpressiveness into forms that have become—perhaps unintentionally—increasingly expressive. These new gold ground paintings have no theoretical explanation, nor does Venet search for one, feeling his new liberty is a hard won prize. He does not justify the eccentric shapes of the canvases, considering them just one kind of possible order that permits him to cut off the texts in unexpected and unpredictable ways. “After painting the saturations of numerous colors”, he explains, “Today my ideal solution is a ‘non color’ which at the same time is the ideal background like those of the religious paintings of Cimabue. Besides which my first paintings were blue, red and the green of the paintings of Cimabue on gold grounds. As a very young artist in 1959 and 1960 I painted religious paintings with gold grounds. At the time I rejected color as much as possible 13.” In the current series Venet delights in the artificiality of gold since it is a color not found in nature. He explains his attraction to gold on the basis that gold is not a natural but a cultural color associated with religious paintings and architectural embellishment. And of course the imagery of mathematics is not that of religious iconography. Despite the whirl of professional activity at Le Muy, because it is in a pastoral setting, there is a great quiet and a possibility for contemplation listening to the waterfall outside the ancient mill. The library is full of books Venet is constantly consulting and it is not surprising to find that above his bed in the place where a crucifix would normally be hung is the text of Gödel’s Theory of Incompleteness.

Venet, in conversation with the author, 2010.

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

top left:

Effondrement: 225.5˚ Arc x 11 2011 Cor-ten steel Diam.: 500 cm; site-speciﬁc dimensions bottom left:

Four Indeterminate Lines 2011 Rolled steel 270 x 550 x 320 cm

219.5˚ Arc x 28 2011 Cor-ten steel H: 400 cm; diam.: 500 cm; site-speciﬁc dimensions Exhibition: Château de Versailles, France, 2011 35

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

85.8˚ Arc x 16 2011 Cor-ten steel H: 22 meters Exhibition: Place d’Armes, Château de Versailles, France, 2011 36

Art Selection

Wall reliefs, 1978-1979, graphite on wood Exhibition: Museum K端ppersm端hle f端r Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, Germany, 2007 39

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Position of Four Right Angles 1979 Graphite on wood Diam.: 210 cm; depth: 5.5-6 cm; dimensions may vary 40

Position of Two Major Arcs of 287.5Ë&#x161; Each 1979 Graphite on wood Diam.: 210 cm; depth: 5.5-6 cm; dimensions may vary 41

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Indeterminate Line 1981 Graphite on wood 189 x 189 cm 42

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Indeterminate Line 1984 Graphite on wood 177 x 195 cm 44

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Installation of GRIBS in the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio, 2011 47

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

GRIB 5 2011 Torch-cut waxed steel 236 x 150 x 3.5 cm 48

GRIB 1 2011 Torch-cut waxed steel 225 x 215 x 3.5 cm 49

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

GRIB 1 2011 Torch-cut waxed steel 225 x 215 x 3.5 cm 50

GRIB 1 2011 Torch-cut waxed steel 245 x 310 x 3.5 cm 51

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Foreground: Six Leaning Straight Lines 2009-2012, cor-ten steel, H: 185 cm; L: 12 meters Background: GRIB 2 2011, torch-cut waxed steel, 239 x 277 x 3.5 cm - GRIB 2 2011, torch-cut waxed steel, 246 x 240 x 3.5 cm Exhibition: Kunsthalle M端csarnok, Budapest, Hungary, 2012 52

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

GRIB 3 2011 Torch-cut waxed steel 238 x 410 x 3.5 cm 54

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Installation of GRIBS in the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio, 2011 56

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

GRIBS, 2011, torch-cut waxed steel Exhibition: Kunsthalle M端csarnok, Budapest, Hungary, 2012 58

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

GRIB 1 2012 Torch-cut waxed steel 248 x 146 x 3.5 cm

GRIB 1 2012 Torch-cut waxed steel 249 x 150 x 3.5 cm 60

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

GRIB 4 2011 Torch-cut waxed steel 233 x 461 x 3.5 cm 62

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Saturations, 2006-2011, acrylic on canvas Exhibition: Retrospective exhibition at the Kunsthalle M端csarnok, Budapest, Hungary, 2012 65

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Saturation with a Large Bracket 2006 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 200 cm 66

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Gold Saturation with Four Blue Arrows 2008 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 200 cm 68

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Gold Saturation with four Q 2008 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 200 cm 70

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Saturations, 2010-2011, Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 80 cm, each Exhibition: L’oeuvre peinte, Hôtel des Arts, Toulon, France, 2011 72

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Gold Saturation with Horizontal Arrow 2011 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 74

Copper painting with ‘the’ in the upper left corner 2010 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 75

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Copper painting with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Phi and two 2 2010 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 76

Gold saturation painting with ‘three integrals’ 2010 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 77

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Gold saturation with a big 3 2011 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 78

Copper painting with ‘Sum W 2’ 2010 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 79

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Copper painting with four ‘sums’ 2010 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 80

Gold saturation painting with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;a probability densi...â&#x20AC;&#x2122; 2010 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm 81

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Red and Gold with member function 2009 Acrylic on canvas 180.5 x 211.5 cm 82

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Square Gold with 4 Triangles 2009 Acrylic on canvas 186.5 x 186.5 cm 84

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Peintures or en 4 parties avec ‘contient’ en haut à gauche 2009 [Gold Painting in 4 parts with ‘contient’ on the upper left] Acrylic on canvas 213.5 x 333 cm 86

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Gold Saturation with ‘we determine ﬁnitely’ 2009 Acrylic on canvas Diam.: 247 cm 88

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Double Leaning Gold 2010 Acrylic on canvas 214 x 313.5 cm 90

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Gold Saturation with 2 on the upper right 2012 Acrylic on canvas 182 x 182 cm 92

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Pearl Saturation with NN 2008 Acrylic on canvas 182 x 182 cm 94

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Round Saturation (Gold) with 23 on Top 2011 Acrylic on canvas Diam.: 214.5 cm 96

Curriculum Vitae

1941 1958 1959 1964 1966 1971 1974 1976 1977 1978 1979 1984 1988

1989 1991

1993 1994

1996

1997

1998 1999

2000

Born on April 20 in Château-Arnoux, France. Studies for one year at the Villa Thiole, the municipal art school of the city of Nice. Employed as a stage designer for the Nice City Opera. Participates in the Salon comparaisons at the Museum of Modern Art, Paris. Creates a ballet, Graduation, to be danced on a vertical plane. Starts making new work based on the use of mathematical diagrams. Bernar Venet decides, for theoretical reasons, to cease his artistic activities. Teaches “Art and Art Theory” at the Sorbonne, Paris. A representative for France at the XIIIth São Paulo Biennale, Brazil. Starts creating artistic work again. Exhibits at Documenta VI, Kassel, Germany. Participates in the exhibition “From Nature to Art. From Art to Nature” at the Venice Biennale, Italy. Awarded a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, Washington, DC. Starts creating his sculptures at Atelier Marioni, a foundry in the Vosges region of France. Jean-Louis Martinoty asks Bernar Venet to stage his ballet Graduation (conceived in 1966) at the Paris Opéra. The artist is the author of the music, choreography, set designs and costumes. Received the 1988 Design Award for his sculpture in front of the World Trade Center in Norfolk, Virginia. Awarded the Grand Prix des Arts de la Ville de Paris. Creates several musical compositions including Sound and Resonance at the Studio Miraval, Var, France. Release of two compact discs on the Circé-Paris label, Gravier/Goudron, 1963, and Acier roulé E 24-2, 1990. Invited to participate in the artists’ film festival in Montreal, Canada for his film Rolled Steel XC-10. Mr. Jacques Chirac, then the Mayor of Paris, invites Venet to present twelve sculptures from his Indeterminate Line series on the Champ de Mars. This exhibition kicks off a world tour of Venet’s sculptures. Awarded the honor of “Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et Lettres” by the Minister of Culture in France. Presentation of the film Lines, directed by Thierry Spitzer, which covers the artist’s complete œuvre. Moves to a studio in Chelsea, New York City. Begins a new series of sculptures entitled Arcs x 4 and Arcs x 5. Becomes a Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, based in Salzburg, Austria. Travels to China. Invited by the Mayor of Shanghai to participate in the Shanghai International Sculpture Symposium. Installation of a public sculpture in the city of Cologne, Germany in honor of the G-8 Summit. Releases the third version of the film Tarmacadam (from 1963) with Arkadin Productions. Exhibits at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Geneva. Publishes a compilation of his poetry, Apoétiques 1967-1998. Exhibits a new series of wall paintings, Major Equations, at central art museums in Rio de Janeiro and Saõ Paulo, Brazil; Cajarc, France and at MAMCO in Geneva. A year of important publications: Bernar Venet 1961-1970, a monograph about the young artist by 99

The Paradox of Coherence

2000

Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

100

Robert Morgan; Sursaturation, an original work about reflections on the possibilities of literature; Bernar Venet: Sculptures & Reliefs, written by Arnauld Pierre; La Conversion du regard, with texts and interviews from 1975-2000; Global Diagonals. Éditions Assouline publishes Furniture, with a text by Claude Lorent in conjunction with exhibitions at the Galerie Rabouan Moussion and at SM’ART (Salon du mobilier et de l’objet design), both in Paris. Poetry reading at White Box in New York with Robert Morgan. Inauguration of the Chapelle Saint-Jean in Château-Arnoux. The stained glass windows and all the furniture are designed by Bernar Venet. Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris exhibits new series of Equation paintings. A performance-evening incorporating the artist’s poetry, film and music at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. Exhibits Indeterminate Line sculptures at the Galerie Academia in Salzburg, Austria, and at Robert Miller Gallery in New York. Monograph by Thomas McEvilley on the artist’s complete body of work published in French and German, and a year later in English. Exhibits Equation and new Saturation paintings at Anthony Grant, Inc., New York. Traveling sculpture show arrives in the United States. The Fields at Art Omi International Sculpture Park in New York State inaugurates a program of personal exhibitions presenting twelve of the artist’s sculptures, covering all variations on the theme of the line. The show moves to the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida in November. Seventeen solo exhibitions this year, including a retrospective of his early work from 1961-1963 at the Hotel des Arts, Toulon, France, and Autoportrait at the Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain (MAMAC) in Nice, France. Exhibits Saturation paintings in France, California and at the Art Basel Miami Beach Fair. L’Yeuse, Paris publishes first book on Equation paintings, written by Donald Kuspit. Traveling sculpture show makes its way through Europe: in Nice, France; the city of Luxembourg; Bad Homburg, Germany; Schloss Herberstein, Austria; and in the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris. Three simultaneous solo exhibitions at locations in New York City, notably the Robert Miller Gallery as well as three large-scale sculptures on the Park Avenue Malls. Publication of Art: A Matter of Context, a book of the artist’s writings and interviews spanning 19752003. Traveling sculpture show makes its way to: the city of Liège, Belgium; Miami, Florida; and Denver, Colorado. A year of important commissions for: Bosch Collection in Stuttgart, Germany; AGF, Paris, France; and the Colorado Convention Center, in Denver. Retrospective of the artist’s Arcs exhibited at the Musée Sainte-Croix of Poitiers, France. Related survey, L’hypothèse de l’arc, is published a year later. On January 1, the artist is named “Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur”, France’s highest decoration. His sculptures continue to tour Europe and North America, with exhibitions in Boulogne-Billancourt and Cergy-Pontoise in France; at the Galerie Guy Pieters Knokke-le Zoute, Belgium; the Evo Gallery in New Mexico; and the Carrie Secrist in Chicago, Illinois. Receives the Robert Jacobsen prize for sculpture from the Würth Stiftung in Germany. Chosen by the jury at the Ministry of Culture in Paris to paint the ceiling of the Palais Cambon of the Cour des Comptes in Paris, in celebration of the establishment’s bicentennial in 2007. Inauguration of Saturation on the ceiling of the Cour des Comptes in Paris by President Jacques Chirac. Three retrospective exhibitions: at the National Museum of Contemporary Art near Seoul, South Korea; the Busan Museum of Modern Art in Busan, South Korea; and the Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst in Duisburg, Germany. Traveling sculpture show moves to the French cities of Bordeaux and Metz. June sees the inauguration of 25 meter Arcs commissioned for the Toulouse Métro. Sotheby’s for the first time invites a single artist – Bernar Venet – to present his work on the grounds of the Isleworth Country Club. From January through April 2008, approximately twenty-five monumental sculptures showcase the artist’s work of the last two decades, highlighting some of his most distinctive themes. In the fall, the city of San Diego hosts a dozen of the artist’s sculptures in California.

2009

2010

2011

2012

L’Espace de l’Art Concret in Mouans-Sartoux stages the first public exhibition of artwork from the Venet Family Collection. The Arsenale Novissimo grants him 1,200 m2 of space in the 53rd Venice Biennale to exhibit four new monumental sculptures. A survey of paintings and sculptures is mounted at the Kunsthalle Darmstadt in Germany, then moves to the Palais des Beaux Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels, supplemented by an exhibition of new “Shaped Canvases” at the Galerie Guy Pieters in Knokke-Heist, Belgium. Valencia’s IVAM mounts a retrospective of Venet’s conceptual work as well as a full survey of his paintings under the curatorship of Barbara Rose. The Texan-French Alliance of the Arts and McClain Gallery lead the charge of bringing Public Art to Houston, in the form of 10 large-scale sculptures by Venet installed in Hermann Park. The Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur organizes for a group of sculptures in Salzburg, Austria. President Nicolas Sarkozy inaugurates a monumental sculpture on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice in honor of the 150th anniversary of the city’s reunification with France. Two commissions in Seoul, Korea for Dongkuk Steel Mill and Hannam The Hill. Mounts a painting retrospective at the Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea, and the Hôtel des Arts, Toulon. Exhibits seven monumental sculptures on the grounds of the Château de Versailles, and the Château de Marly in France, including Arcs of 22 meters framing the statue of Louis XIV at the palace entrance. A film, “Venet / Sculptures” is produced by Thierry Spitzer on the occasion of Venet à Versailles. Exhibits sculptures at the Salinger Foundation in Le Thor and in the city of Valenciennes, France, as well as in Frankfurt, Germany, and sees the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz present his drawings on the occasion of the acquisition of a sculpture for their permanent collection. Develops his work on steel wall reliefs (“GRIBS”), which he inaugurates at the Von Bartha Garage in Basel, Switzerland. Stages a retrospective at the Müscarnok Museum in Budapest, Hungary. March sees the inauguration of 88.5° Arc x 8, a 27-meter tall sculpture on Gibbs Farm near Auckland, New Zealand, and the announcement by Valencia’s IVAM that Venet will be the 2013 recipient of the International Julio González Sculpture Prize. A biographical note on Bernar Venet is included in the 2012 Edition of the Dictionnaire Larousse, which will be available to the public starting June 2012.

Selected Solo Exhibitions 1964 1966 1968 1969 1970 1971 1974 1975

1976 1977

1979 1984 1985 1986 1987

Galerie Ursula Girardon, Paris, France Galerie Jacques Matarasso, Nice, France Judson Church Theater, Relativity’s Track (performance), New York Newark College of Engineering, Newark, New Jersey Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France New York Cultural Center (Retrospective), New York Galerie Daniel Templon, Milan, Italy XIIIth Biennale, São Paulo, Brazil Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Great Britain La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California Bruno Bischofberger Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland Musée d’Art et d’industie, Saint-Étienne, France Sonja Hennie - Niels Onstad Foundation, Hovikodden, Norway ARCO Center for Visual Arts, Los Angeles, California Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers, France Musée d’Art Moderne, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France Musée Départemental des Vosges, Épinal, France Leo Castelli Gallery Uptown, New York Galerie Pierre Huber, Geneva, Switzerland Quadrat Museum - Moderna Gallery, Bottrop, Germany

101

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Shaped Canvases, 2009-2011, acrylic on canvas Exhibition: Seoul Museum of Art (SOMA), Seoul, South Korea, 2011 102

103

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1989

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1990

Acknowledgements

1991 1992 1993

1994

1995

1996 1997

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2004

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Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf, Germany Ronald Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri Galerie Daniel Templon, La ligne à vif (performance), Paris, France Leo Castelli Gallery Uptown, New York Galerie Pierre Huber, Geneva, Switzerland Fred Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles, California Galeria Theo, Barcelona, Spain Person’s Weekend Museum, Tokyo, Japan Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, France Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany André Emmerich Gallery, New York Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea Hyundai Gallery, Seoul, South Korea Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida Hong Kong Museum of Art, Kowloon, Hong Kong Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai, China Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris FIAC, France Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France Le Nouveau Musée / Institut de Villeurbanne, Lyon, France Musée du Québec, Québec, Canada Hyundai Gallery, Seoul, South Korea Musée d’Art Moderne de St. Étienne, St. Étienne, France Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy Galleria Karsten Greve, Milan, Italy Centro Cultural de Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina Museum of Modern Art Mücsarnok, Budapest, Hungary Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva, Switzerland Eaton Fine Art, West Palm Beach, Florida Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janiero, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Centre d’Art Contemporain Georges Pompidou, Cajarc, France Teatro Nacional de Brasília, Brazil Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, São Paulo, Brazil Galerie Kaj Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris, France Furniture, Galerie Rabouan Moussion, Paris, France Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Berlin, Germany Galerie Hans Mayer, Berlin, Germany Galerie Academia, Salzburg, Austria Conjugaisons et divorces de la voix, de l’image et de l’écriture, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany Robert Miller Gallery, New York Grant, Selwyn Fine Art, New York Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain (MAMAC), Nice, France Equation/Saturation, MAMAC / Galerie des Ponchettes, Nice, France 1961-1963, Hôtel des Arts, Toulon, France Bernar Venet aux Tuileries, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, France Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Allemagne Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris, France Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Berlin, Germany Sculptures on Park Avenue, New York Robert Miller Gallery, New York Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers, France

2005

2006

2007

2008 2009

2010

2011

2012

Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques, Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France Vancouver International Sculpture Biennale, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Sculptures in the Loop, Chicago, Illinois Gary Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand Museum / Kunsthalle Würth, Künzelsau, Germany William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwangmyeong-gil (Seoul), South Korea Bernar Venet in Bordeaux, France Bernar Venet in Metz, France Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, Germany Busan Museum of Art, Busan, South Korea Bernar Venet: Sotheby’s at Isleworth, Windermere, Florida Galerie von Bartha, S-Chanf, Switzerland Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany Le Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR), Brussels, Belgium Arsenale Novissimo, 53rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy Bernar Venet in Hermann Park, Houston, Texas Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain, curated by Barbara Rose Le monde de Bernar Venet, Venet in Context, Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France Seoul Museum of Art (SOMA), Seoul, South Korea Ludwig Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz, Germany Venet à Versailles, Château de Versailles, Château de Marly, France Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes, France Bernar Venet in Frankfurt, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany Hôtel des Arts, Toulon, France Von Bartha Garage, Basel, Switzerland Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hungary Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand Bernar Venet: Monumental Sculptures, Le French May, Hong Kong de Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland

Public Collections Akron Art Institute, Akron, Ohio, USA Atlantic Richﬁeld Corporation, Los Angeles, California Bank Audi, Beirut, Lebanon Busan Museum of Art, Busan, South Korea Citibank Corporation, New York, New York, USA City of Metz, France City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Colonnade III Plaza, MEPC & Equity Properties, Dallas, Texas, USA Contemporary Art Center, San Diego, California, USA DaimlerChrysler Collection, Stuttgart, Germany Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, USA Espace de l’Art Concret, Mouans-Sartoux, France Esplanade de Uni Mail, Geneva, Switzerland Esquire Company, Seoul, Korea First National Bank, Seattle, Washington Fonds d’Art Contemporain des Musées de Nice, Nice, France Fondation Clément, Le François, Martinique Fondation Looser, Zürich, Switzerland Fondation Mourtala, Dakar, Senegal Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, Switzerland Foundation Domnick, Nürtingen, Germany 105

The Paradox of Coherence Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

Three Indeterminate Lines 1994 Rolled steel 273 x 300 x 430 cm Exhibition: Champs de Mars, Paris, France, 1994 106

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The Paradox of Coherence

Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA Gateway Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri, USA Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia, USA He Xiangning Art Gallery, Shenzhen, China Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., USA Ho-Am Art Museum, Seoul, Korea Hood Museum of Art Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Ilshin Spinning Company, Seoul, Korea Ilwoo Foundation, Jeju Island, Korea Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia, Bamberg, Germany Jumex Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France Ludwig Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz, Germany Maison Européene de la Photographie, Paris, France McCrory Corporation Collection, New York, New York, USA Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA MIT Permanent Collection, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Musée d’Art contemporain de Dunkerque, Dunkirk, France Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain, Nice, France Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain, Saint Étienne, France Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, Grenoble, France Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris, France Musée du Québec, Québec, Canada Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Musée national d’art moderne de Liège, Liège, Belgium Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers, France Musées Royaux de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg, Germany Museum of Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California, USA Museum Sztuky W. Lodzi, Lodz, Poland Museum / Kunsthalle Würth, Künzelsau, Germany National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (Gwangmyeong-gil), South Korea National Museum of Jakarta, Jakarta, Indonesia Neue Galerie im Alten Kurhaus, Aachen, Germany North Fork Bank Collection, Melville, New York, USA Parc de la Boverie, Liège, Belgium Person’s Weekend Museum, Tokyo, Japan Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida, USA Quadrat Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, USA Sara Hilden Art Museum, Tampere, Finland Seoul Museum of Art (SOMA), Seoul, South Korea Seoul Olympic Museum, Seoul, South Korea Smalley Sculpture Garden, University of Judaism, Los Angeles, California, USA Sonja Henie - Niels Onstad Foundations, Hovikodden, Norway Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyongbuk, Korea The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, USA The Fields Sculpture Park, Omi International Arts Center, Ghent, New York, USA The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, USA

Art Selection Curriculum Vitae Acknowledgements

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The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA The New York University Art Collection, New York, New York, USA The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York, USA Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA Von der Heydt Museum, Wüppertal, Germany Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut, USA Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA Yuanta Financial Holdings, Taipei, Taiwan

Commissions Archon Company, Austin, Texas, USA Bank Al Maghrib, Agadir, Morocco Beijing Silver Tower Real Estate Development Company, Beijing, China Centre Hospitalier de Cannes, Cannes, France City of Adachi, Tokyo, Japan City of Belley, France City of Bergen, Norway City of Cologne, Germany City of Denver (Colorado Convention Center), Denver, Colorado, USA City of Epinal, France City of Lille, France City of Shenzhen, China Collège & École de Commerce Emilie-Gourd, Geneva, Switzerland Dongkuk Steel Mill Company, Seoul, South Korea Espace Fortant de France, Sète, France Gallery Hannam The Hill, Seoul, South Korea Goodman Segar Hogan, The World Trade Center, Norfolk, Virginia Groupe AGF, Paris, France Hansol Company, Seoul, Korea Jardin Albert 1er, Nice, France Kurpark, Bad Hamburg, Germany La Chapelle Saint Jean, Chateaux-Arnoux, France La Cour des Comptes, Paris, France La Défense, Paris, France Miyagi Prefectural Library, Sendai, Japan Place de Bordeaux, Strasbourg, France Place Sulzer, Nice, France Quai des Etats-Unis, Nice, France Rocher de Roquebrune, Roquebrune sur Argens, France Runnymeade Sculpture Farm, San Francisco, California, USA Société du Métro de l’Agglomération Toulousaine, Toulouse, France TCLM Mansons Development, Auckland, New Zealand Urania Platz, Berlin, Germany

109

Acknowledgements

Author Barbara Rose Conception and Coordination Jacki Mansﬁeld Carole de Senarclens Frédéric de Senarclens Vijaya Krishnan Sophie Hirabayashi Chanez Baali Audrey Collins Laszlo Szalai Olivier Philibert Maxime Bruyelle Graphic Design mostra-design.com Photo Credits Philippe Bompuis, Nice - p. 8 Jérôme Cavalière, Marseille / Archives Bernar Venet, New York - p. 26, 102-103 Philippe Chancel, Paris - pp. 34-35 Courtesy of Capella, Singapore - pp. 30-31 Alexandre Devals, Paris / Archives Bernar Venet, New York - Front Cover, p. 8-11, 40-41, 52-53, 58-59, 64-65 Werner Hannapel, Essen - p. 39 Craig Johnston, New York - pp. 18-19 Gauls, Koblenz - pp. 20-21 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland - pp. 48, 50, 54-55 Jean-Christophe Lett, Marseille - pp. 72-73, 82-83, 85-87, 90-91 LuxProductions, Paris - p. 23 Jean-Marie del Moral, Paris - p. 107 De Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong - p.89 Archives Bernar Venet, New York - Back Cover, pp. 9, 12-13, 15-16, 25, 36-37, 43, 45-47, 49, 51, 56-57, 60-63, 67, 69, 71, 74-81, 93, 95, 97 Andreas Zimmermann, Basel - p. 5 Printed in Singapore Dominie Press Pte Ltd Edition of 1’000 copies Published in 2012 © the artist and the author ISBN 978-981-07-3647-7

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